'Bizarre!': Uni students' late night pool visits for wi-fi

by jgould

Joel Gould
Journalist
Joel is a journalist with 20 years of experience and since February, 2011 he has been the late reporter at The Queensland Times. Joel specialises in longer features and as the late reporter he chases all the breaking stories that unfold in the evenings. A die hard rugby league fan, Joel has been pushing hard for the Western Corridor bid to be admitted into the NRL.

WHEN the night is well along and the midnight hour has struck, they gather in their multitudes down by the lagoon in Springfield Central.

No, this is not a story about an Ipswich remake of the B-grade horror movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Would you believe it, we are talking about students in their droves connecting to the free public wi-fi at the Orion Lagoon in the middle of the night.

Acting Mayor Paul Tully, also the council's Digital City spokesman, said the latest data revealed that on average 724 users a week were making use of the service at Orion Lagoon.

It is when that service is being accessed which has proved to be remarkable.

"What are called heat maps show the number of people connected to the wi-fi at any given time of the day," Cr Tully said.

"We had a situation recently where it was showing a lot of people on the wi-fi next to the pool at the lagoon at 1am and 2am, which is peculiar because you'd think around a pool you'd have hardly anyone in the middle of the night.

"Our security guy went there just to see what was happening and found it was students from USQ, only a five-minute walk away.

"Apparently their wi-fi was either regularly down or not as fast as the public wi-fi so they were sitting around the tables at the lagoon doing their studies and preparing their assignments."

The QT reported recently that residents in the Springfield area were going to McDonald's to use their wi-fi because the NBN service was inadequate.

Cr Tully said the continued use of the public wi-fi in the early hours at Orion Lagoon was okay with him.

"Absolutely, they are members of the public who are entitled to use it," he said.

"But it is just bizarre how free wi-fi was being used.

"It is probably the first time in Australia that students were congregating around a public swimming facility to do their studies. I think it is absolutely fantastic."